Baked Pumpkin Donuts

I was inspired by a friends facebook post to finally pull out the donut pans that have been sitting in my cupboard for 6 months and make something delicious.  Pumpkin has been hitting pinterest hard the past few weeks, and luckily I had pinned a pumpkin donut recipe recently that I was anxious to try.  These donuts are fantastic!!  Moist (I hate that word), sweet and so, so good.  I doubled the recipe to use up a large can of pumpkin; most of them I just put the cinnamon sugar on top but some of them I put a glaze on just for kicks, and then the last batch I added mini chocolate chips to them.  If you don't have a donut pan these can also be made into muffins, just lengthen the cooking time.  I got my donut pans at Ross for dirt cheap, they are also reasonable on amazon.  Happy eating!!



Baked Pumpkin Donuts
Recipe from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups pumpkin purée (canned pumpkin)
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, or 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon plus a heaping 1/4 teaspoon each ground nutmeg and ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Directions:

Beat everything together until smooth.  Add 1 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons (8 ounces)  flour, stirring just until smooth.  Lightly grease two standard donut pans.   If you don’t have doughnut pans, you can bake these in a couple of standard muffin tins; they just won’t be doughnuts.  Fill the wells of the doughnut pans about 3/4 full, using a scant 1/4 cup of batter in each well.  Bake the doughnuts for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean.   If you’re making muffins, they’ll need to bake for 23 to 25 minutes.  Remove the doughnuts from the oven, and after about 5 minutes, loosen their edges, and transfer them to a rack to cool.  While the doughnuts are still warm (but no longer fragile), gently shake them in a bag with cinnamon sugar.   If you’ve made muffins, sprinkle their tops heavily with the spiced sugar of your choice.